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AN 



EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE 



IN 1893 



ANTHROPOLOGY SOCIETY 

DEPARTMENT OP 
AMpRIOAN AND PREHISTORIC 
^^AEpeAEDLbGY, AT THE :. 
^^fNlVBBSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



Reprinted from Publicatiuns of the University of Pennsvlv:i 



inia. Vol. VI 



BOSTON 

O I N N & CO A I P.^ XT V 

1«97 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE, BUCKS 
COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, IN 1893. 

by henry c. mercer. 

Introduction. 

The end of a subterranean chamber (175 feet long by 50 
broad and 21 to 28 feet high) opening upon a limestone quarry, 
close by the mouth of Durham Creek on the right bank of the 
Delaware River and surrounded by slag heaps, — a sight to fill 
the investigator with regret, — is all that is now (1893) left of 
the once celebrated Durham Cave. Most of its original roof 
has been destroyed by a process of blasting begun by the 
Durham Iron Company about 30 years ago.^ A great chasm 
once noticed by workmen has been filled up, the remains of 
men and animals have disappeared, and we have to search old 
accounts and question quarrymen for a notion of the original 
cavern which consisted of three or four large high-roofed 
chambers, and must have been at least 280 feet long.^ 

As Rafinesque, who visited it in 1834, describes the single 
ingress looking eastward upon the river as " a shelving entrance 

1 This disastrous attack upon the limestone for lime-making in the kilns and 
ore-smelting in the neighboring Durham Furnace began, according to Mr. Laubach, 
in 1854 ; but Mr. Fackenthall, director of the furnace, who says that the site of the 
cave was bought by Mr. Joseph Whittaker for the company in 1847 and that the 
lime-kilns were not built before 1848, assures me that no internal disturbance was 
effected in the cave by blasting before 1866. 

2 Jacob Nichols, a workman who remembered the cave since 1825, told me in 
1893 that the original entrance stood on the south side of the present slag track. 
He remembered a series of rooms running in many directions, and W^illiam Martin, 
who had come from Ireland in 1848 and was familiar with the cave before its 
destruction, further testified to the size and number of the underground rooms. 




Fig. 47, — Durliam Cave (right bank of the Delaware River, at tlie mouth of Duiliam Creek, Bucks 
County, Pennsylvania), as it appears in 1896. The open foreground indicates the area occupied 
by large chambers blasted away by the Durham Iron Company, the original entrance to which 
must have been somewhat nearer the observer than the extreme front of the foreground, or 
about 100 feet nearer than the present opening. The Delaware River is about 150 feet behind 
the observer. Photographed, July, 1896. 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. I5I 

30 feet wide and lo feet high," ^ and as a writer in Hazard's 
Register (for March, 1828, Vol. I., p. 132) ^ speaks of a consid- 
erable enlargement, narrowing below into an entering rift broad 
enough to admit three persons abreast, the outermost chamber, 

1 Rafinesque speaks of it as extending inwards 300 yards. He says that it was 
not remarkable for any great wonder and contained no fossils, though he tells us 
that he only went a little way into it. 

2 His full description, given from a series of hasty and sometimes very incorrect 
guesses at the dimensions made on August 6 and October 12, 1802, is as follows : 
" The entrance into the grotto is about one hundred yards west of the Delaware 
River, and from one hundred and fifty to two hundred north from the point of land 
at the confluence of Durham Creek and said river. The height of the eminence 
enclosing the cavity is from two hundred to two hundred and thirty feet above the 
level of the circumjacent land. From the pathway of the entrance to the top of 
the rock above the measurement is upwards of forty feet. Three or four persons 
may easily enter abreast, but no more, as the mouth, though wide enough for 
admitting a great number, is rendered inaccessible by a ledge of rock running 
partly across. The cave is naturally divided into three grand apartments, into 
each of which out of the other the descent is steep, caused also by rocks prominent 
and jutting. After a descent of almost thirty feet the first apartment or chamber 
displays its greatest height and width, of which it is not an easy matter to form a 
true estimate on account of the irregularities in the vault occasioned by deep inter- 
stices and low dependent stone. A faint idea of its dimensions may, however, be 
formed from the following statement : first apartment, ninety feet long and aver- 
aging thirty-three feet wide and twenty feet high ; second apartment, ninety-six feet 
long and averaging forty feet long and twenty feet high ; third apartment, ninety- 
three feet long and averaging sixteen feet wide and seventeen feet high. Length 
of the whole cave to the water's edge at the bottom, 279 feet ; breadth of the water, 
twenty feet. On October 12 the thermometer in the open air stood at 64°, but 
descended to 59° at the partition between the first and second apartments. 
Between the second and third apartments it sunk to 54°, which temperature it pre- 
served throughout the whole innermost chamber. On August 5 the thermometer 
was very differently affected by the enveloped air, standing then in the open at 
78° and at the lower end of the first chamber at 54°, but at the farther end of the 
lowermost rising to 62°. 

" On some parts of the vault is a white parget, somewhat crystallized and prob- 
ably a petrifaction composed of water exuded through the rock and calcareous 
matter. By the assistance of a hammer it is easily severed from the stone to which 
it adheres, some of it yielding to the pressure of the fingers. Over the parts of the 
arch there was another kind of incrustation dark in color, having the appearance 
of moss upon a tree, but as hard as the rock itself ; over it water is continually 
trickling. The rock encompassing the cavern is entirely limestone, through which 



152 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 

which the latter writer says was 90 feet long by about 10 feet 
high, must have been to some extent light. If it was dry, as 
we may suppose from the surrounding drainage, it should have 

in many places there is perpetual percolation of water. By supposition the 
descent in a right line forms an angle of 40° with the horizon. 

" At the bottom a basin of excellent water, which measured twenty feet at the 
place where it came into contact with the rock, terminates the cave as far as it has 
been or can be explored. Beyond the meeting of the rock and water there is a 
conduit running farther into the earth than could be measured with a long pole, 
and this is undoubtedly continued, though it may ramify into many subordinate 
channels before it advances to the beds of the river and creek. The many springs 
on the verges, the proportionate rising and falling of the water contained in the 
cavern, with the flowing of the waters in the river and creek, demonstrate the con- 
nection of the subterranean waters with those outside, and prove the surface of the 
one to be on a level with that of the other. When there is a high freshet in the 
river the lowest chamber is nearly filled. 

" At the partition between the first and second apartments a small branch of the 
cave, thirty-two feet in length and so wide as to permit in some places two persons 
to pass, takes a course in an easterly direction. From this branch lead two others 
still smaller, the one extending twenty-two feet north and the other in width 
admitting one person, continuing fourteen feet south." 

Judging from the statements of workmen as to the position of the entrance, I 
guessed that it was 200 feet out from the present (1893) arch which, added to 135 
feet for the remaining room, would make the original cave 335 feet long, though 
the above writer's length of 299 feet is probably correct. But Rafinesque's 300 
yards is out of the question, as is also the length, about 1 50 feet, given by Davis. 
(See History of Bucks County, by W. W. H. Davis, p. 652.) 

The present inner chamber may have been lengthened by blasting so as to per- 
mit the Hazard writer's estimate of its length of 93 -|- 20 = 1 13 feet to be correct, 
although it seems now to measure 135 feet without allowing for its destroyed 
outer end, while the present height, 21 to 28 feet just under the arch, diminishing 
to 10 feet at the water's edge, fairly corresponds with the average for height (17 
feet) given in Hazard. Hazard's 300 yards to the river and 150 to 200 yards to the 
mouth of Durham Creek from the entrance, should be correct by my approximate 
measurements of 310 feet and 190 to 200 paces for these distances, respectively. 
But he is altogether wrong in saying that the cave hill, not seriously lowered by 
blasting, and which does not now measure above 90 feet in height (I found it 83 
feet with a monocular level), could ever have been from 200 to 230 feet high. 

In an examination made on March 27, 1896, when the river, swollen by rains, 
stood at a height of about 10 feet above its ordinary level, I found the cave pool 
at from 3 to 6 feet below the river level and that of Durham Creek. Both streams 
were muddy, while the cave water was clear, precluding the idea of immediate 
underground communication. 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 53 

offered a desirable shelter to savages, thus fulfilling one of the 
first conditions of a cave shelter chosen for visitation by abo- 
rigines ill supplied with lights, and who in my experience in 
the eastern United States have not left evidence of their 
baitings in rooms that were dark. 

Had the floors of Durham Cave been periodically over- 
whelmed by freshets of the Delaware, which, catching up the 
associated remains of men and animals, might have whirled 
away or hopelessly mixed the epoch-denoting layers, there 
would have been small use at any time in examining the cave 
earth for such evidence of man's antiquity as similar caverns 
have, furnished in Europe. But the entrance to the cave must 
have been by my estimate about 25 to 30 feet above even the 
highest known freshet mark of 1841, so that another condition, 
that makes of a subterranean floor deposit an important palaeon- 
tological and human record, namely, permanency of environing 
conditions, was fulfilled. 

A less public and conspicuous position (in one of the inland 
ravines to the westward, for instance) might "have subtracted 
from the significance of the original shelter ; but since its black 
doorway looking eastward over the river lawn from the slope of 
an isolated eminence, and set close upon the water, must have 
continually tempted the savage foot-wanderer — since, further, 
all passers-by following the river only 300 feet away, or halting 
at the mouth of Durham Creek, must have seen the cave, its 
situation satisfied another archaeological desideratum, namely, 
that of publicity and ease of access.^ 

These conditions leading the investigator to regard some 
caves as of much, and others as of little, significance would 
have warranted us in ascribing special importance to Durham 

1 To realize after investigation that the remains of Indians are more numerous 
and their village sites larger on the main stream than anywhere else in the Dela- 
ware Valley, is to suppose, not without reason, that the immediate shores of the 
river would have first and longest attracted the attention of any immigrant to the 
region. 



154 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 

Cave in its original and undisturbed condition, at least during- 
the time within whose limits we venture as yet to speculate as 
to human presence in eastern North America, in other words, 
during that geological portion of the Pleistocene, in which 
man has been demonstrated to have existed in Europe, while 
the Delaware hills and valleys have been as they now are, and 
while we may suppose the cave to have held the same relative 
position to man that it held when the blasting began. If Pleis- 
tocene man existed at Trenton, he may well have ascended 
the river thirty miles, seen the cave, and entered it. If in the 
milleniums that are alleged to have intervened between his 
appearance and the discovery of America, any intermediate 
people, lower in the scale than the aborigines known later to 
white men, passed that way, the cave could not more easily have 
escaped their notice than it escaped that of the Lenni Lenape 
Indians, one of whose village sites confronted its entrance. ^ 

1 According to Mr. Charles Laubach, mounds, trails, clearings, and abundant 
fire-sites at the spot marked the position of the Indian village referred to in cer- 
tain Pennsylvanian records of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as Pecheque- 
olin {Peckotwoallenk, where there is a great depression in the land). Anthony Lau- 
bach, father of Charles, remembered stone-paved Indian fire-places set along the 
river margin in the alluvium extending from Riegelsville Bridge to the mouth of 
Durham Creek. The circular areas, raised about 12 or iS inches, and about 6 feet 
in diameter, composed of burnt stones imbedded in ashes, did not e.xtend in a 
straight line, but were irregularly disposed, and appeared to stop at a place seem- 
ingly devoted to the manufacture of arrowheads. Then, beginning again, they 
continued to the entrance of the cave. Seen first about 1S12 they remained until 
1841, when the great freshet for which that year was famous destroyed them all. 
The digging of the Delaware and Lackawanna Canal had previously obliterated a 
large portion of the village site with other fire-places. Cultivation continuing the 
work of destruction, finally completed it when three mounds on the top of the hill 
behind the cave, about 20 feet in diameter by 6 to 8 feet high and e.xtending in 
alignment north and south, were ploughed down by William Walters in 1S53-55. 

Walters, who had measured before destroying them, had found or noticed 
nothing in them. An Indian trail had followed the right bank of Durham Creek 
for some distance inland along its ravine from which another trail, passing through 
an Indian clearing on the top of the hill above the cave, returned down the slope 
to the village. When Charles Laubach saw this clearing, — which remained sur- 
rounded by a forest as late as 1855, — it comprised about seven acres, and ran from 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 55 

That the comparatively recent inhabitants of this village with 
their row of fire-sites along the river close by, with their mounds 
on the slopes behind, and beaten trail passing the cavern to 
ascend Durham Creek, must have paid frequent visits to the 
subterranean rooms ; and that they left traces of their pres- 
ence on the floors there can be little doubt, while it is cer- 
tain that bones of animals through various agencies had 
become scattered in and upon the cave earth, notwithstanding 
the statement of Rafinesque, who after a hasty look said that 
the cavern contained no fossils. 

Mr. Laubach informs me that Professor H. D. Rogers, the 
state geologist, who examined the cave about 1856, found in 
it numerous Indian implements associated with animal bones, 
which former specimens, on being afterward sent to Dr. Swift 
at Easton, were burned in a fire at Pardee Hall ; while Professor 
Rogers says (Geology of Pennsylvania, by H. D. Rogers, Vol. 
I., p. 231) : "This cave was found many years ago to contain 
some interesting fossil bones, an account of which will be found 
in another chapter." 

east to south in longest diameter. Both in the clearing and close to the neighbor- 
ing three mounds, grooved stone axes were found, while at a point some distance 
up the river and close to the present Morgantown Road, Mr. Laubach remembers 
having seen from twelve to fifteen standing stones, the survivors of a group of 
about twenty-live formerly observed by Mr. Walters, all of which save one about 
3 feet high, now remaining as a boundary mark by the Morgantown roadside and 
seen by me in 1893, were afterwards used to build the wall of a neighboring barn- 
yard. 

The monoliths must have been carried to the spot by Indians, since the rock 
in situ is limestone, and the Potsdam sandstone of which they consisted does not 
occur within two miles of the place. Earlier villages may have been overwhelmed 
by freshets at the site of Pechequeolin, according to Mr. Laubach, who says that 
he discovered arrowheads deeply buried in the alluvium after its exposure by the 
1841 freshet ; or, according to workmen who tell of a pipe discovered six feet 
below the surface in a sand pit. Two skeletons interred -with beads were found 
near the river two feet under the sand at the upper end of the site in 1868-70. 

A band of Shawnees, who had been quartered with the Delawares, left the 
Durham site, according to Mr. Laubach, in 1728, except a small remnant who 
rem.ained upon Brandywine Creek, a tributary of Durham. Creek, until 1780. 



156 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1893. 

What became of these fossils we fail to learn from Professor 
Rogers, who never mentions them again in his two volumes ; 
but if, as Mr. Laubach alleges, he sent them to the Academy 
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, some of them at least are 
represented in a list of animal remains from Durham Cave 
found afterward at the Academy and identified by Dr. Joseph 
Leidy as those of 

Black bear Urstis americatnts 

Raccoon Procyon lotor 

Gray fox Viilpes cinereoa/'gentattis 

Skunk MepJiitis viephitica 

Woodchuck ...... Arctomys inoiiax 

Porcupine Erethisott dorsatus 

Beaver Castor fiber 

Muskrat Fiber sibethiciis 

Gra}'^ squirrel .... Sciiirus caroliiiensis 

Wood rat Neotoma floridana 

Gray rabbit Lepiis sylvafiais 

Deer Cerviis virginianiis 

Elk Cervus canadensis 

Moose A Ices americamis 

Wild turkey Meleagris gallopavo 

Box turtle Cistiido claiisa 

Snapper Chelydra serpentina 

Snake Entaenia sirtalis 

Sturgeon Acipenser stiirio 

Catfish Aniinrus atrariits?- 

Whether this list represents all the specimens collected by 
Professor Rogers or not, Mr. Laubach has learned that, besides 

^ Mr. Laubach informs me that several boxes of bones gathered in tlie cave by 
Professor Rogers (marked " Durham Bone Cave, H. D. Rogers ") were sent to 
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia from Durham about 1845-55. 
All or some of these boxes were doubtless discovered by Dr. Joseph Leidy, who, 
after ransacking the cellar or museum of the Academy in 1SS7, appended to a 
paper on llartmans' Cave (see Fossils in Caves, by Professor Joseph Leidy, Pennsyl- 
vania Geological Survey, iS87,p. i) the above list of the remains of 20 vertebrata 
representing "a small collection of bones" contained in the museum of the 
Academy, " presented about forty years ago, but of which I can find no record." 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1893 I 5/ 

the bones above referred to and sent to the Academy, others 
were subsequently found during the demolition of the cavern 
by workmen. I remember when a boy noticing several on the 
cave floor while one of the later alchambers was partly intact, 
about 1873, and heard from workmen in 1893 that human 
remains (suggestive of cave burial) had been found in smaller 
fissures. At the latter date Robert Barnet, who had seen the 
cave before its destruction, told me that he remembered the 
bones, horns, and teeth of animals lying on the surface in 
the cave, so exposed to the view of visitors that they were 
frequently carried off as curiosities. 

Such were the probabilities in favor of supposing a consider- 
able deposit of human and animal remains to have existed on 
the original cave floor that it seemed worth while, notwith- 
standing the fact that two-thirds of the rock walls and roof 
had been blasted away, to cut through the mantle of downfallen 
debris now overspreading the former cavern area, so as to lay 
bare if possible the old subterranean accumulations where they 
were most significant. But the attempt failed. 

A Search for the Original Cave Floor. 

How nearly the newly blasted faces of the walls of the 
amphitheatre coincided with the outer limit of the original 
chamber walls, it was impossible to say, since by all accounts 
the arrangement of rooms had been quite irregular, and no 
water-worn surfaces remained to suggest the previous contours. 
Neither was it easy to guess the true position of the former 
floors if they existed, since the thick mantle above mentioned 
of rock splinters and clay, which had dropped from above when 
the roofs fell, covered the larger part of the area once occupied 
by the subterranean rooms. Furthermore, as many parts of 
any cave floor are unavailable for digging, owing to dampness, 
slope, fissures, and relation to light and passages, it remained to 




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AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 59 

be seen whether a reasonable number of trenches sunk through 
the rubbish would reveal the buried evidence we sought. 
Joseph Nicholas, one of the quarry men, said that the cave floors 
were blown up, though he had not seen it done, while William 
Cyphers, also present at the blasting, denied their destruction, 
a statement seemingly corroborated by our own excavation of 
three trenches through the rubbish (see Fig. 48) : (i) 20 feet 
long by 2 feet 10 inches wide by 4-6 feet deep ; (2) 14 feet 
long by 4^-5 feet wide by 7 feet 3-5 inches deep ; (3) 7 
feet long by 2 feet 10 inches wide by 7 feet 7 inches deep ; 
at distances of 90, 175, and 222 feet east of the margin of the 
cave pool, noticed in the above quoted account from Hazard 
covering the inner lower end of the remaining chamber. The 
water-worn ledge revealed at the bottom of each trench, and 
evidently the original rock bottom of the cavern, showed no 
signs of blasting, but the hardness of the superincumbent rub- 
bish and its depth, with the cost and difficulty of removing it, 
induced me to desist on the completion of the third trench. 

The conditions in all three excavations were unsatisfactory. 
A hard-caked mass of recent quarry rubbish mixed with bits 
of coal slag, and here and there fragments of animal bones 
(elk, carnivore (.''), gray fox, wood mouse, porcupine, and squir- 
rel), 7 feet 7 inches deep in the third trench, 7 feet 3-5 inches 
in the second, about 3^ feet thick in the first, rested upon 
whatever represented the original foothold of the cave. In the 
third trench no deposit was clearly found to intervene between 
the rubbish and the solid water-worn ledge on which it lay, so 
that we reasonably inferred either that the original cave earth 
on the ledge had been removed during the blasting, or, as 
seemed more likely, that we had reached a bare rock slope or 
level where no earth had ever accumulated. In the second 
trench no clear line of demarcation or conspicuous variance in 
the character of the rubbish indicated the existence of an under- 
placed layer, though to the original foothold probably belonged 



l60 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 

a few quartzite pebbles lying close to the surface of the rock, 
and which may have been brought into the cavern by Indians 
or washed in by the higher Post-Glacial freshets. In the first 
trench, however, a layer of original cave earth lay upon the 
rock floor and under the rubbish. It contained the following 
bones, kindly identified by Professor Cope : the upper incisor 
and various bones of the wood mouse, Per'oniyscns (at a depth 
of 5 feet 4 inches) ; the radius (at 6 feet lo inches), femur (at 
3 feet 3 inches), and upper incisor (at 4 feet) of the porcupine, 
Erethizoii dorsatiis ; two femora (at 6 feet), a tibia, and meta- 
tarsal (at 7 feet) of the rabbit, Lepiis ; and the rib (at 5 feet 4 
inches) of a snake (undetermined). 

As it pertained to what must have been a dark and damp 
inner room of the cave, this layer did not surprise us by con- 
taining no trace of the hearths and ash-bands that would have 
denoted the baitings of early man at the spot. Thus the true 
floor deposit that appeared absent in the outer two trenches, 
when found in the inner, was insignificant and at the wrong end 
of the cavern, while the scanty remains of animals scattered in 
it by whatever agencies, and lacking certain signs of human 
association, represented modern species and suggested no new 
estimate for man's antiquity.^ 

1 The detailed description of these trenches is as follows: Trench i, 2 feet 
long by 2 feet 10 inches wide, was sunk at a spot just under the rock arch and 
about 96 feet outside the margin of a pool of water above described at the base of 
the cave. This revealed first Layer i of down-fallen rubbish and splinters, 2 feet 
deep inside to 3 feet 7 inches deep outside, sprinkled towards the bottom with the 
small bones of bats. Next came Layer 2 of reddish clay about 2 feet thick, some- 
what disturbed towards the top and containing the bones of the wood mouse, 
squirrel, porcupine, rabbit, and snake described above. Notwithstanding the dis- 
turbance which characterized the top of this clay, it appeared that our search had 
been rewarded at the outset by discovering in it a portion of the original floor 
deposit ; nevertheless the fact was of little real importance, and when we considered 
that the place examined must have represented the soil of the wettest, darkest, 
and least inhabitable portion of the cave, some part of the lowermost chamber prob- 
ably subject to overflows of the cave pool, there was little reason to be surprised 
that no trace of charcoal or ashes, no relic of human handiwork, gave evidence 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 161 

that man had halted and built fires at the spot. Below the clay the pick-axes 
clanged on a solid ledge of limestone opening within the area of the trench into a 
narrow fissure with rounded sides into which the clay containing bones continued. 
Where this narrowed to a breadth of about 8 inches at a depth of about 6 feet 
from the top of the trench, we stopped digging. 

Trench 2, 6 feet long by 4 feet wide and 175 feet out from the margin of the 
cave pool, showed Layer i a disturbed mass of clay and limestone splinters, con- 
tinuing from the surface of the ground to a ledge of solid rock at a depth of 6 
feet. Several fine bits of coal sprinkled through this rubbish gave clear evidence 
of its recent disturbance. That much of it had fallen down from the original outer 
surface of the hill, and that it had been considerably mixed and moved during the 
process of blasting, there could be little doubt. Two feet down in it was found a 
fragment of the horn of an elk, Cerviis canadensis (see Fig. 50, object 22), much 
gnawed by animals, about 2^ inches long by i^ in diameter, with the softer 
bone inside removed for about Yz inch, suggesting in its shape the bone haftings 
of stone blades found in the Swiss Lake dwellings. Resting upon the rock 
bottom we found several quartzite pebbles from 1/^-3 inches in diameter, whose 
presence was not easy to account for. Had they been brought into the cave by 
Indians for the purpose of blade-chipping, some of them would doubtless have 
shown abrasions upon their sides ; but neither such traces of use, nor the stainings 
or scorchings sometimes characteristic of pebbles found about the fire-sites of 
savages and inferably used for cracking marrow bones, were found upon any of 
them. Though it was possible that they had fallen with the debris from the top 
of the eminence, we failed to find similar pebbles upon the outer surface of 
portions of the hill not yet disturbed by blasting, and it seemed more reasonable 
to suppose that Glacial freshets had washed them inside the rock arch.i 

The hard-caked rubbish yielding grudgingly to the blows of the pick-axe, and 
appearing generally homogeneous from top to bottom, had revealed no line of 
subdivision upon its exposed face to warrant our supposing that even its lower 
portion, containing the pebbles above referred to, constituted an original and 
undisturbed, if non-relic-bearing, portion of the cave floor. 

Disappointed at the result, we tried again, sinking Trench 3 (7 feet long by 2 
feet 10 inches wide) in line with the other two, and following the original axis of 
the cave, as we guessed at it, at a point 222 feet out from the edge of the pool. 
Here again the disturbed rubbish, clay, limestone fragments, bits of coal, and loam, 
continuing down without an apparent break, rested on a ledge of seemingly water- 
worn rock, the probable bottom of the cave, at a depth of 7 feet 6-7 inches. The 
hard digging disclosed the tibia (at 6 feet 2 inches) of a carnivore unidentified, and 
the tibia (at 6 feet 3 inches) of the gray fox, probably Vitlpes cinei'eoargentatus. 
But as little could be inferred from these specimens, we thought it wise to desist. 

' Mr. R. W. Raymond of the Durham Iron Company informed me that in a colliery near 
Wilkesbarre a mass of rock splinters produced by blasting in one of the galleries had been rolled 
into pebble form after the passage had been subjected to the action of rushing water in a year and a 
half ; but these pebbles being of quartzite, not limestone, were not original constituents of the cave, 
and must have come from a distance. 



1 62 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 



Excavation of Queen Esther's Chamber.^ 

A hole in the roof close under the left end of the remaining 
arch and reached by a step-ladder (at a point where a ledge 
conducting to it had been destroyed by blasting) led by a sharp 
turn on the left (east) to a steep, upward passage 13 feet long 
by I foot 3 inches broad and 7-10 feet high at the entrance, 
broadening with irregular walls to about 7 feet inside, and then 
contracting at its extremity to a crevice 2 feet 10 inches wide, 
but of ample height. This opened into the so-called Queen 
Esther's Chamber, an irregular room (see Fig. 49) about 14 feet 
wide by 12 feet in diameter by 8 feet 7 inches in height at the 
highest part of its irregular crevassed roof. The soft, mealy, 
cave earth bedding its floor, when gathered in handfuls, revealed 
in the candle-light an admixture of particles of charcoal, and 
when cleaned out entirely showed walls trending together into 
a V-shaped cavity, where the west wall sloped east at a sharp 
angle to meet the perpendicular east face. The roof was some- 
what blackened with smoke, and one of its several irregular 
indentations communicated with a particularly black fissure 
about 8 inches in diameter, under which, on burning a news- 
paper, a strong draught of the flames into it, indicated its 
occasional service as a chimney. As the place, save for a few 

Not only had we failed at three points to discover clearly marked culture layers 
upon the cave floor, but in no instance had our work revealed certain signs of 
ancient human occupancy. Though we had reached original portions of the rock 
floor uninjured by blasting, our efforts had probably been directed at points too 
far from the entrance, too damp originally, or too dark to have served as the 
chosen halting-places of aboriginal cave visitors. 

1 Probably recently named after the half-breed reputed daughter of one of the 
French governors of Canada, Catherine Montour, called Queen Esther, who exer- 
cised a controlling influence among the Susquehanna Indians during the Revolu- 
tion, and who has been supposed (see Hollister's History of the Lackawanna 
Valley, p. 170), but perhaps without good reason (see Sherman Day's Historical 
Collections of Pennsylvania, p. 144), to have presided over the killing of white 
prisoners by Indians after the battle of Wyoming in 1778. 



164 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 

rays of daylight at the entering crevice, was dark, candles were 
necessary at the digging, when the removal of the cave earth 
revealed the following layers : 

Lay 67^ I (I foot to 2 feet thick), consisting of soft brown cave 
mould comparatively dry and containing bits of charcoal and 
pieces of decayed wood, showed evidence of small fires recently 
built about its surface. Near its bottom we encountered a 
darkened deposit containing intermixed pieces of charcoal, 7 
fragments of rotten wood from 2-4 inches long, and a store 
of 7 butternuts and 3 walnuts gnawed by animals (see Fig. 50, 
objects I and 2). Three of the wood fragments were charred, 
and one 35^ inches long showing the bark on one side revealed 
a cut across the grain at one end, which, as compared with my 
remembrance of the marks of stone blades on the sharpened 
billets found in the Indian jasper mines at Macungie, Lehigh 
County, Pennsylvania, and the broken-off staves made by In- 
dians in the Wyandotte Cave, Crawford County, Indiana, 
looked like the result of a chopping blow with a metal axe or 
hatchet. At various depths in this layer (in the left (north) 
corner at about 2 feet 6 inches) were found upwards of 90 
fragments from i to 4 inches long of the bones of animals, 
sometimes split as if by feasting savages for the purpose of 
extracting the marrow, sometimes scorched, and sometimes 
gnawed by animals (see Fig. 50, objects 17, 18, 19, and 20). 
The specimens identified by Professor Cope consisted of a 
humerus fibula and astragalus (gnawed) of the beaver. Castor 
fiber; the pharyngeal bone of the chub, Scmotilus ; the pec- 
toral spine of the catfish, Ainiitriis ; the lower jaw with two 
molars (see Fig. 50, object 9), a scapula, two humeri, an ulna, 
an ilium, and two ischia of the porcupine, ErctJiizon dorsatits ; 
the sacrum and pelvis of the rabbit, Lcpus ; the canine tooth 
and lower sectorial molar (see Fig. 50, objects 4 and 5) of the 
black bear, Ursns anicricamis ; the temporal bone, a part of 
the zygoma (gnawed), a piece of humerus (split and gnawed), 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 65 

and an ilium (gnawed), together with about 50 undescribed 
fragments of the bones of the deer, Cariaciis virginianus ; a 
gnawed metacarpal of the wild cat, Lynx rtifiis ; the lumbar 
vertebra of a carnivore (undetermined) ; the skull bones of the 
grouse, Bonasa ; a piece of the carapace of the tortoise, Cis- 
tudo (see Fig. 50, object 7); two humeri, two femora, a tibio- 
fibula, and ulno-radius of a large frog, Rana ; and the tibio- 
fibula of a small frog, Rana. With these remains lay two 
vertebra (of young animals) and part of the mandible (much 
gnawed) of the -peccdiry, My lohy us pennsylvanicus {?,&& Fig. 51). 
As in the case of the other larger bones, it seemed reasonable 
to suppose that these fragments had been carried to the spot 
by rodents, while there was nothing to indicate that the animal 
had died where we found its remains. It was as to the age of 
these that the evidence spoke most conclusively. Of a light 
yellow color, and no less modern in appearance than the deer 
bones found with them, the interesting jaw and vertebrae pre- 
sented no evidence of antiquity. 

Just as many of the surrounding deer bones (some of which 
had probably been split for marrow by the Indians) showed 
marks of the gnawing teeth of rodents, so the peccary's jaw 
had been similarly gnawed, when still retaining its animal 
juices. 

Other remains, referred to later, of the deer, porcupine, and 
beaver lay deeper than those of the peccary, and in an older 
subdivision (Layer 2) of the cave earth, while the jaw and verte- 
brae belonged to a superficial accumulation, which, beginning 
under the present conditions of the cave, was still forming. 
Whether the animal had or had not made part of an Indian 
feast in one of the outer chambers, whether it had come to the 
cave to die, or met its fate at the hands of man or beast, the 
evidence failed to show, but that it had existed as a contem- 
porary of the modern deer, bear, porcupine, beaver, wild-cat, 
squirrel, grouse, and rattlesnake found with it, there could be 




Fig. 50 (X /,). — Bones of the (4 and 5) black bear, (6) wild-cat, (22) elk, (17, 19, 20) deer, (9, 10, 11) porcupine, (18, 
21) beaver, (14, 15, 16) rabbit, (7) land tortoise, and (scattered) bat, found associated with the remains of the 
extinct peccary {Afylo/iyus pcittisylvauicus) in Queen Esther's Chamber, Durham Cave, September, 1893. 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 6/ 

no doubt. Reasonably to be regarded as a survival from, not 
as a representative of, an older time, it was proved modern by 
its association, a:nd under the circumstances, though no evidence 
appeared to prove its contemporaneity with man, the probability 
cannot be denied that the Indian encountered or could have 
encountered it in the Delaware Valley. 

The shells kindly identified by Professor H. A. Pilsbury 
(except the small mussel, Unio coniplanatiis, perforated doubt- 
less accidentally with a small hole) were all those of snails, 
many of which, though good for food, had probably found their 
own way into the cave. Close to the surface lay Pyramid^ila 
alternata Say, Polygyra albolabris Say, while at undetermined 
depths we found Physa Jieterstropha Say, and two species of 
Lymnaea catascopiiim Say. With them, in the same layer, 
spinkled about the surface and at various depths were unearthed 
numerous bones of bats (see Fig. 50, scattered upon the back- 
ground), as to which I owe my thanks to Dr. Harrison Allen, 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, who has kindly identified 
the series as belonging to two still existing species common in 
caverns, and of which I have obtained characteristic remains 
in the floor deposits of various caves in Tennessee, hereafter 
to be described. Dr. Allen determines two skulls (see Fig. 
50, objects 13 and 14), several jaws, femora, tibiae, clavicles, 
and humeri, with two ulnas showing unnatural bone growth, as 
belonging to Adelonycteris fusca, and a humerus and ulna with 
several bones as those of Vespertilio grypJms. 

Of the 50 deer bones found, 20 were split as if for the pur- 
pose of extracting the marrow, of which latter three were also 
gnawed, while two were split, gnawed, and scorched. Twelve 
unsplit fragments were gnawed and one scorched. On or about 
the surface were found 8 vertebrae of the rattlesnake {Crotaliis), 
4 vertebrae of the water snake {Matrix or Etitaenia), and at 
least 250 bones with fragments of skulls and teeth of bats. 
Below Layer i the comparatively finer brown cave earth of 



l68 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 

Layer 2 (2 to 2j^ feet in depth) continued down to the sloping 
ledofes of the rock below. As we worked downward the bits of 
charcoal grew rarer, and the bone fragments, revealed by the 
light of candles, became scarce. Nevertheless disturbances 
seemed to have taken place below 2 feet, particularly along the 
sides and against the rock, where several bones and pieces of 
charcoal were found at a depth of 2 to 3 feet below the original 
surface : the ulna (.') and tibia (gnawed) of a beaver, Castor fiber; 
a lower incisor of the porcupine, Erethizon dorsahis ; 2 split 
bones of a deei", Cariacus virginiamis ; and i scorched and 3 
gnawed bones (undetermined). 

The rock bottom revealed at last was very irregular, opening 
downward into several water-worn fissures about 2 feet in 
diameter, into which we did not excavate. Nowhere in the 
cave earth had we found sufficient deposits of charcoal and 
ashes to indicate the former existence of cooking fires at the 
spot, and the bones, gnawed, scorched, or split as they often 
were, seemed to have been brought to their final resting-place 
by animals who had either preyed upon the leavings of human 
feasts in the outer cave (as some of the scorched, split bones 
seemed to indicate), had distributed pieces of carcasses of ani- 
mals found dead in the dark rooms, or had borne underground 
their quarry captured in the woods. 

Queen Esther's Chamber recalled the dark crannies utilized 
for the sepulture of charred human bones by Indians in some 
of the Kentucky and Tennessee caves. ^ But no funereal traces 
were discovered, and notwithstanding its chimney it was too 
close and small, too far removed from the daylight to have 

^ A small damp room, accessible by a chasm with a rope, in Peckenpaugh's 
Cave (left bank of Ohio River at Peckenpaugh's Landing, Meade County, Ken- 
tucky), contained numerous charred human bones, with ashes, charcoal, and 
mussel shells, and the bottom of one of the shallow chasms along the main gallery 
of Lookout Cave (left Tennessee River bank just below Chattanooga, explored in 
1S93) was strewn with similar remains. We also found human bones lying upon 
shelf-like ledges facing the same main passage of the Lookout Cave near the 
entrance. 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 69 

served as a feasting site for savages. The vestiges of fire, 
insignificant as they were, and the seemingly axe-cut limb spoke 
rather of the remains of torches or random lights kindled in 
modern times. 

To complete the examination of Queen Esther's Chamber it 
was necessary to remove the floor earth of what might have 
been called its vestibule (marked "A" in the museum labels 
upon the specimens discovered), an enlarged bifurcation of the 
entering passage, opening to the right (west) as you left the 
top of the step-ladder. About 12 feet long by 4 to 5 feet 
wide, with irregular sides, and a ceiling extending upward pos- 
sibly 20 feet into a narrow, dark fissure, its floor was found 
to contain a bed of cave earth, the removal of which revealed 
the following layers : 

Layer I (6 inches to i foot), a deposit of disturbed red earth 
containing near the surface broken pipe-stems of white man's 
make, burnt sticks, and a fragment of the calcaneum of a deer 
{Cerviis). Next below this 

Layer 2 (4 feet) showed a closely bedded mass of small lime- 
stone fragments containing a number of fine bat bones, but no 
discovered human trace. Below this 

Layer ^ (6 inches to 2^ feet), a deposit of clay loam, rested 
upon the steeply sloping floor, and followed its irregularities. 

Neither in Layer 2 nor in Layer 3 were any traces of hearths 
or of stained bands representing levels discolored by human 
presence during or before the deposition of the splinters in the 
cave. We were left to infer that the scanty signs of disturb- 
ance in Layer i represented the only period of human occupancy 
anywhere found, while that some of the charcoal gathered in it 
(like the seemingly axe-cut branch of Layer i in Queen 
Esther's room) had been placed there by white men rather 
than Indians, there could be little doubt. 

The following is a complete list of the animal and molluscan 
remains found in the various diggings : 



I/O AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 



Remains of Animals Found in Durham Cave in September, 
1893. Identified by Professor Edward D. Cope. 



Note. — Q. E. signifies Queen Esther's Chamber, 
parentheses. 



The depths are given in 



Chub {Semotilus), pharyngeal bone . 
Catfish (^Amuirtts'), pectoral spine . 
Frog {Rana^ large), 2 humeri, 2 fem- 
ora, and ulno-radius .... 
Frog (^Rana, small), 2 tibio fibulae . 
Tortoise (^Cistudo), piece of carapace 
Rattlesnake {Crotalus), 8 vertebrae . 
Water snake (^Matrix or Eictaenia), 

4 vertebrae .... 
Snake (undetermined), rib . 
Grouse {Bonasa), skull bones 

sacrum and pelvis . 

2 femora 

tibia 

Squirrel {Sciitt'us)^ humerus 

humerus and tibia . 
Beaver (Castor fiber'), pelvis 

and astragalus 

humerus .... 

ulna (?) .... 

tibia (gnawed) 
Porcupine {Erethizon dorsatns), 3 

humeri, lower jaw with 3 molars, 

scapula, 2 ulnae, and 2 ischiae . 

lower incisor 

humerus 

radius 

femur 

upper incisor 

lower incisor and ischium 
Wood mouse (Pero my sens'), lower jaw 

and teeth 

upper incisor and various bones 



fibula 



Q. E., Layer i 
Q. E., Layer i 

Q. E., Layer i (2d foot) 

Q. E., Layer i (2d foot) 

Q. E., Layer i 

O. E., Layer i, depth undetermined 

O. E., Layer i, depth undetermined 
Trench i , Layer 2 (5 feet 4 inches) 
Q. E., Layer i, depth undetermined 
Q. E., Layer i 
Trench t, Layer i (6 feet) 
Trench i, not marked 
Trench i (3 feet) 
not marked 

Q. E., Layer i 
O. E., Layer i 
O. E., Layer 2 
O. E., La3'er 2 



O. E., Layer i 

0. E., Layer 2 

Trench i (2 feet 8 inches) 

Trench i (6 feet 10 inches) 

Trench i (3 feet 3 inches) 

Trench i (4 feet) 

site and depth not marked 

Trench i (3 feet) 
Trench i (5 feet 4 inches) 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. I/I 

Rabbit {Lepus)^ metatarsal . . . Trench x, Layer 2 (7 feet) 
ulna, pelvis, humerus, and lum- 
bar vertebra not marked 

Carnivore (undetermined), lum.bar 

vertebra Q- E., Layer i 

tibia Trench 3, Layer I (6 feet 2 inches) 

(?) Fox {Vulpes cinereoargentatus)^ 

tibia Trench 3, Layer i (6 feet 3 inches) 

Black bear {Urstis ajnericanus)^ 
canine tooth and lower sectorial 
molar Q' E., Layer i 

Wild-cat {Lynx rufus)^ metacarpal 

(gnawed) Q- E., Layer i 

fi-at (undetermined), ulno-radius, hu- 
merus, and numerous bones with 
a skull Q- E. surface 

Peccary {Mylohyits pennsylvanicus), 
2 vertebrae of young a-nimals, and 
part of mandible (much gnawed) Q. E., Layer i 

Deer {Cariacus virginianus), piece of 
humerus (split and gnawed), ilium 

(gnawed) Q- E., Layer i 

temporal bone Q. E„ depth not marked 

calcaneum vestibule, depth not marked 

ungual phalange place and depth not marked 

Elk {Cervus canadensis), part of 
antler (gnawed), possibly an In- 
dian blade-handle Trench 2, Layer i (2 feet) 



Remains of Bats Found in Durham Cave in September, 
1893. Identified by Dr. Harrison Allen. 

Adelonycteris ftisca, 2 skulls, jaws, 

femora, tibiae, clavicles, and 

humeri, with two ulnas showing 

exostosis Q. E., on or near the surface 

Vespertilio gryphus, humerus and 

ulna with several bones . . . Q. E., on or near the surface 



1/2 AN Exploration of Durham cave in 1893. 

Remains of Shells Found in Durham Cave in September, 
1893. Identified by Professor H, A. Pilsbry. 



Unio cojHplanatits^ a small hole 

broken through the middle . 
Py?-a}iiidula alternata Say . . 
Polygy?'a albolabris Say, 2 species 
Polygyra albolabris Say ... 
Physa Jieterostropha Say . . 



O. E., Layer i (1 }4-2 feet) 

O. E., surface 

O. E., surface 

O. E., depth undetermined 

O. E., depth undetermined 



Lyninaea catascopiiDii Say, 2 species O. E., depth undetermined 

A Summary. 

Unsatisfactory and unfruitful as much of the digging had 
been, its results, taken as a whole, had not lacked significance. 
Having found reason to ascribe great archaeological importance 
to the site before the destruction of its roof, we had learned 
that the original rock bottom had not been blasted away, and 
therefore offered to the future investigator a chance for the 
discovery of significant human refuse layers somewhere under 
the recent rubbish in the amphitheatre (probably about 300 
feet east of the cave pool). Where we had encountered cave 
earth the sites of our trenches were of necessity unsuited for 
the revelation of the evidence sought for. In these once dark 
inner regions we had failed to find anywhere a significant 
hearth-site, a jasper chip, a potsherd, or an Indian implement 
of bone or stone. The only valuable evidence consisted of the 
remains of animals, and though some of these may have been 
brought to the cave by white men, while not a few may have 
found their way thither from the forest in the jaws of carnivores, 
it seemed reasonable to suppose that others (as, for instance, 
the bones of the bear, elk, deer, and peccary) had constituted 
part of the refuse of Indian feasts in the outer cave, where, 
having been found by prowling animals, they had been carried 
to inner recesses and gnawed while still retaining their juices. 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 73 

For the geological antiquity of man we had gathered no 
proof. The unfossilized bones, not more venerable in appear- 
ance than those found by me in Indian midden heaps on the 
Ohio and Tennessee Rivers,^ were with one exception those of 
still existing animals, and assigned a comparatively modern 
date for the presence of any human cave visitor, who, after 
eating their flesh, had cast them aside. On the other hand, 
the investigation had supplied paleontology with evidence of 
value in the discovery of the bones of the extinct peccary 
(Mylokyus pennsylvanictLs) mingled with the remains of still 
existing animals, if not with the contemporary refuse of Indian 
cookery. The animal indicated by the symphyseal part of the 
lower jaw with alveoli of teeth, referred to above (see Fig. 51), 
according to Professor Cope represents a species which " is quite 
different from any existing peccary, and belongs to a different 
genus {Mylokyus Cope) which is intermediate between Dicotyles 
and Platygoniis. About the size of the living white-lipped 
peccary, the animal is of especial interest in view of its late 
persistence, as it was probably contemporary with the abo- 
riginal so-called Indian. Neither this jaw nor those described 
by Leidy are fossilized. A peccary not distinguishable from 
this one, so far as the material permits me to judge, was found 
by Mr. Mercer in the Port Kennedy bone-fissure, in company 
with another species of Mylohyus!' 

These are desirable data for the history and genealogy of 
the peccary, and pertain to an unexplained gap in a kind of 
testimony which has been thus far either geologically ancient 
or quite recent. That the peccary was a familiar inhabitant of 
the area of the United States in Post-Glacial time, that it 

1 A surface Indian refuse heap at Mackers' Station (right bank of Ohio River, 
6 miles above the Kanawha's mouth) contained the bones of man, bear, gray fox, 
dog, elk, calf, opossum, raccoon, turkey, soft-shelled turtle, with unio shells. 
Another on the left bank of the Tennessee River (near the mouth of the Nickajack 
Cave, Marion County, Tennessee) contained the remains of deer, tortoise, and 
rabbit along with the shells of existing fresh-water mollusca. 



174 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 



roamed the North American forests with the tapir, the masto- 
don, and the fossil sloth is a fact now as well established as 
the present existence of its modern representatives in subtrop- 




FlG. 51 (actual size). — Fragment of the lower jaw and vertebrae of the extinct p&ccary (lifylokyiis 
fienusylvauiats) found with the remains of still existing species (see Fig. 50) in Queen Esther's 
Chamber, Durham Cave, September, 1893. 

ical America. Its bones have been dug out of lead-bearing 
fissures near Galena, Illinois, and unearthed with the remains 
of the mastodon in Benton County, Missouri. An almost 
complete skull reached the Academy of Natural Sciences of 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1/5 

Philadelphia from a saltpetre cave in Kentucky, and Lund 
exhumed skeletal fragments (representing according to him 
five species) from the Pleistocene caves of Brazil. The charac- 
teristic highly enamelled and many-lobed teeth, sometimes set 
in complete jaws, have confronted me at various depths in the 
bone-bearing chasm at Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania, where 
they were embedded with the remains of the sabre-toothed 
tiger, the fossil bear, the mastodon, sloth, and horse ; and I 
have found them again at Zirkels' Cave in Tennessee in asso- 
ciation with the fossil grizzly bear and tapir.^ Such evidence, 
however, refers to an epoch in the past removed by many 
milleniums from the discovery of America, while to encounter 
the peccary in existence we must leave his earlier northern 
habitat altogether, for a region at least as far south as the Red 
River of Arkansas. Thenceforward to Patagonia, pairs or 
herds of the well-bristled, hog-like little animals, dark brown in 
color and from 30 to 40 inches long, represented by the collared 
Dicotyles torqiiatus, the more pugnacious and larger white- 
lipped Dicotyles labiatits, and the Dicotyles angiilatiis, range 
the wilder regions of South and Central America and Mexico. 
To the northward of the Red River limit evidence for the 
existence of the modern peccary seems to be wanting, and no 
credited tale of early explorer or modern hunter has to our 
knowledge asserted its presence in the middle northern or 
eastern United States since the coming of the white man. 

When and how the tribe, which is as characteristic of the 
New World as is the hog {Sits scrofa) of the Old, became 

1 Naturalists, not without disagreement and correction of their own observa- 
tions (see Leidy, Dicotylinae of America. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc, X., N.S.,p. 323, 
and XI., N.S., p. 97), have attributed a series of several genera and species, fossil 
and living, to this animal, based on variations in the skull, the number and shape 
of the molar and incisor teeth, and the strength of the canines. Flower and 
Lydekker (see Animals Living and Extinct. London, Black, 1893) are disposed 
to reduce the genera to one, namely, Dicotyles, but Professor Cope gives me the 
following list of genera and species : 



1/6 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 

extinct in the north, and why it migrated southward, are ques- 
tions still unanswered. We may suppose that its abandonment 
of the United States is linked with the changes in climate or 
the vicissitudes, as yet little understood, that attended the 
melting of the great glacier, with the similar desertion of 
North America by the tapir and the mysterious extinction of 
the American horse. 

But whatever the cause of this episode in the fate of the 
peccary, the little known period during which the change 
occurred is of as much interest to the student of man's antiquity 
as to the paleontologist. For the two sciences it constitutes 
the meeting-ground, since an earlier fauna perished in it, since 

(i) DicoTYLES Cuv., distinguished by teeth crowned with tubercles, 6 incisors, 
and 3 premolars, and represented by 2 fossil and 3 living species, namely, 

D. serus (fossil), found in the Miocene deposits of the Loup Fork Epoch ; 

D. lenis (fossil), found in a mixed or superficial deposit in Maryland ; 

D. angulatus (living), called ihejavalin, the most northerly species of the 

series, now ranging Central America and Texas ; 
D. torquatus (living), the collared peccary, common in South America as 

far north as Darien ; and 
D. labiatus (living), the white-lipped peccary, now inhabiting South and 

Central America. 

(2) Mylohyus Cope, distinguished by tubercular teeth, 4 incisors, 3 premolars, 
and weak canines, and represented by 2 species, both fossil, namely, 

M. pemisylvaiiicits, attested by the remains from Durham Cave, described 

above, and found at Port Kennedy ; and 
M. nasutus, from Pleistocene deposits in the United States. 

(3) Platygonus Lec, distinguished by teeth with fused tubercles and 
resembling those of the tapir, 4 incisors, and 3 premolars, and represented by 
4 species, all fossil, namely, 

F. vetus, found in a limestone crevice in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania ; 

P. compressiis, common in Pleistocene deposits ; 

P. bicalcaratus, found in the Pliocene beds of Texas; and 

P. altamirani, discovered in the late Tertiary deposits of Mexico. 

(4) BoTHROLABis CoPE, distinguished by tubercular teeth, 6 incisors, and 
4 premolars, and represented by 4 species, all fossil, namely, 

B. pi'istinus, 

B. trichacnus, 

B. r OS I rat us, 

B. sttlnnujitans, all from the middle Miocene beds of Oregon. 



AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 1 7/ 

soon or late in it man appeared, coming from an undetermined 
direction, widening the. sphere of his existence in a way as yet 
unexplained, and bearing a still unknown relation to extinct 
animals. If it is worth the pains of archaeology to penetrate 
into this domain of the naturalist and seek to fix a geological 
date for the advent of humanity in the New World, then dis- 
coveries like this at Durham Cave are important, and prepare 
us to establish landmarks in the pre-Columbian darkness. 

We had found a peccary who had undoubtedly far outlived 
the epoch usually attributed to the animal, and to suppose that 
the Indian had encountered it was no more unreasonable than 
to suppose that he had encountered the common deer repre- 
sented by the cracked bones lying near. Yellow and fresh- 
looking, the jaw and vertebrae presented no greater appearance 
of antiquity than the surrounding remains of recent animals, 
which like them had been gnawed by rodents while still fresh 
enough for food. 

Modernized by their surroundings, they failed to lend the 
color of an older genealogy of animals to the situation. As in 
the case of the sloth of Big Bone Cave, Tennessee,^ as with 
the tapir and mylodon at the Lookout Cavern,^ as with the 
superficial mammoth remains at Big Bone Lick, or as evidenced 
in the Indian picture-writing known as the Lenape Stone,^ 
they present us with a reason for supposing that, in some cases 
at least, the process of extinction was gradual, and that not a 
few representatives of the more ancient epoch survived their 
fellows. 

1 See Preliminary Report distributed by the University of Pennsylvania for June 
4, 1896; also American Naturalist for July, 1896, and Scientific American for a 
July issue, 1896. 

2 See bulletin of Cave Exploration distributed by the University of Pennsylvania 
for July 4, 1894. 

3 Regarded as a fraudulent relic by Dr. D. G. Brinton on general principles, 
but whose authenticity I cannot find just reason to doubt. See The Lenape 
Stone, or the Indian and the Mammoth. By H. C. Mercer. New York, Putnam, 
i88^ 



178 AN EXPLORATION OF DURHAM CAVE IN 1 893. 

At Hartman's Cave, fifty miles up the river, Mr. T. D. 
Paret (see Annual Report of Geological Survey of Pennsyl- 
vania, 1887, Cave Fossils, p. i, plate II) found a fresh-looking 
jaw of a peccary identical in species with the Durham Cave 
animal, and described by Leidy as Dicotyles peimsylv aniens (by 
Cope as Mylohyiis peimsylvaniciis), associated with the extinct 
Castoroides oJiioensis and the migrated caribou and bison ; also 
with the modern lynx, gray fox, skunk, weasel, raccoon, mole, 
bat, woodchuck, porcupine, beaver, muskrat, gray squirrel, 
ground squirrel, meadow mouse, white-footed mouse, wood rat, 
gray rabbit, deer, and elk.^ But at Durham the association as 
far as it goes appears yet more modern, and seems conclusively 
to set a limit to our conception of the antiquity of one species 
at least of the northwardly extinct animal in question, which 
thus within a comparatively few centuries seems to have been 
a denizen of the Pennsylvanian forest. 

^ Also wild turkey, box turtle, snapper, several snakes, and the shells of the 
snails, Helix albolabris, H. alte^'nata, and H. trideiitata, and the river mussel, Unio 
complaiiatus and Margaritina margaritifera, not now found in the neighboring 
Delaware River, with the seeds of dogwood, pignut, and walnut. 



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